Fall of the Gods Book 2: Forward Unto Dawn Teaser
by Scourge75
Summary: A teaser/announcement from Scourge 75 to the readers of the Fall of the Gods series.


First, let me start by saying that this here is an excerpt from chapter… five, I think, of the next book in the series. That having been said, it's a bit of a spoiler in its own, not-overly-a-spoiler way. If you want to, just skip to the bottom (under the line at the end of the 'chapter') and read what's there.

* * *

Teaser/Announcement

***Milky Way Galaxy (Orion Arm)***

**Dead Space (Cylon Fleet)**

*Cylon Resurrection Hub (Consensus Room) [a few hours after the Three Day Siege]*

"Aside from the overly obvious, obnoxious, and, quite frankly, useless reply I know you're going to try and give me, what do we know?" Caprica asked, her comment and glare directed towards Cavil.

"During the assault on the planet, we lost everything we figured we would and then some," D'Anna replied. "The Humans of the Thirteenth Tribe proved that technological superiority can close the gap numerical superiority otherwise creates. They not only managed to defeat the 'Gods,' they also managed to retake control of their planetary defenses. Once they did that, we loss the only advantage we had. We had to resort to rapid FTL jumps to avoid their guns, and they installed shields on their surface-to-orbit weapons overnight when we pulled out to regroup."

"On top of the losses we took to the fleet, the Humans also managed to destroy the _Colony_," Cavil added at a low growl.

"How **did** they manage that?" Simon asked, his line not having been present for the battle.

"They sent their Warstars after the _Colony_ and hit it with enough power to force it into their star. We thought hiding the _Colony_, while cloaked I might add, near the star would prevent its discovery and allow it to harness extra energy from the star. Instead, they used an infiltration team to take out one of the FTL coil banks, then their largest ships knocked it out of orbit and into the star it fell!" Cavil replied with an angry huff.

"So what's the status of the fleet now that we've lost everything from before the final upgrades?" Leoben asked in a far calmer tone.

"Let's hold off on calling the current fleet status the 'final' upgrades," Caprica advised.

"Agreed," Cavil added in a voice that was devoid of his usual mocking tones. "We have plasma cannons. So what! They have plasma beams that cut through our shields faster than anything we've seen to date. We have nuclear missiles? Who cares! Theirs have always been stronger!"

"I'm pretty sure they've upgraded their fleet since the last time we saw the _Odyssey_," Boomer mused.

"Why do you say that?" D'Anna asked.

"This," Boomer said as a holographic image appeared before them all. On the hull of the ship in question, written in large letters, was '_UNSC Odyssey_.' "The name's the same, but these letters have changed," Boomer added while an image of the ship that had accompanied the Colonial Fleet appeared next to the one from the battle against the Thirteenth Tribe.

"The ship's bigger," Leoben pointed out.

"Drastically bigger," Simon agreed.

"Bigger, yes, but it has the same name. I'm thinking it's like _Pegasus_. The original ship was destroyed or mothballed after the unification of the Twelve Colonies, but there's still a _Battlestar Pegasus_ flying around the galaxy today. If the _Odyssey_ was damaged during our last engagement more than we thought, or if the ship was damaged by another enemy, it's possible that the Humans named a new ship after the old one. That, and the new _Odyssey_ and the old one look very similar. The only thing that doesn't make sense are their Warstar-type ships. They're larger and that warrants some changes in design, sure, but these ships don't follow the architecture style I'd expect the Thirteenth Tribe to follow after seeing these two classes of ship," Boomer explained.

"You're right about that," Caprica said thoughtfully while rubbing her chin. "This one doesn't make sense either," she added as the largest ship in the Thirteenth's Tribe joined the images of the original _Odyssey_, the new _Odyssey_, and the two classes of Warstars the Thirteeners possessed. "And then there's these cities that fly. Sure they would be different from the cities on Earth because they can fly, but this… the architecture doesn't make sense."

"Then it's time for someone to say what we're all thinking," D'Anna declared. "The Thirteenth Tribe has had contact with aliens far in advance to the Jaffa we're currently fighting. It's possible these ships don't belong to the 'Tau'ri' at all."

"A sound theory, but let's not forget what we saw," Caprica countered as the ships all disappeared to be replaced by a facility on the surface of Earth.

"They're building them," Leoben noted as the massive form of one of the alien-looking Warstars was seen on a pad in the facility that was protected by a flying city.

"And if they're building them, they are, at the very least, not **crewed** by aliens we have yet to encounter," Simon added. "Just because the Thirteeners are **building** these ships doesn't mean that they **designed** them. Look at what we know," he continued as one of each ship present over Earth appeared in the tank. "Both of the ships we have encountered called '_Odyssey_' fit one of these two designs," Simon said while pointing to the two smallest ship classes. "Then we have the next step up, the ship with ranged weapons that can destroy several Baseships in one hit. Its design is so radically different from the other two that it can't possibly have been designed by the same minds.

"One step up from that? A ship that looks nothing like the next step down or any other ship in the system. These ships have a missile system that has a low yield explosive, but can dodge its way through anything to hit its intended target. That same missiles system was seen being deployed from the surface as well. Other than that, it has more beam weapons on it than several of the other ships combined. The design itself is also different in that it's the only class of ship in the system that's not symmetrical. One step up from that is a behemoth of epic proportions far beyond what the Cylons could conceivably build. And its FTL drive? An improved version of our own.

"If the Thirteeners possessed a form of FTL comparable to our own, why would they not use it on every ship? My answer is that these three classes of ship aren't products of Human engineers. The architectural style of their mobile beam ship more closely matches those of the flying cities, and the structures building those cities? They match nothing on Earth but what is present at the site. Earth and the Thirteen Tribe have had contact with aliens far in advance to anything these Jaffa have ever encountered, and they have had that access for quite some time. However, their association with aliens doesn't end with just one species. These three classes of ships are all different in every conceivable way which means only one thing…" Simon began.

"The Thirteenth Tribe has had contact with no fewer than three alien species," Caprica finished with a nod.

"Which is why their technology is different," Leoben added.

"And more advanced," Boomer agreed.

"But it doesn't explain their numbers," Cavil countered. "If they had access to aliens for as long as they claim, going back to what we know of them from their talks with Roslin when they said their history goes back further than Colonial history, further even than Kobol. Going off of that, they should've had enough ships by now to conquer the galaxy. Why don't they?"

The room fell into silence then as everyone thought that question through. "Infighting?" Boomer suggested. "We know the Colonials went through their own wars where the fighting was between the colonies themselves. It took the Cylon Rebellion to unite them against us and stop their own infighting, and, even then, they still hated each other enough to not treat their fellow man as equals. If they had more than just three-thousand years of history, as they claim, then they could've fought more wars than just one. Hell, it's possible they **have** conquered the galaxy once before only to lose control when they started fighting amongst theirselves then the Jaffa come in and they lose everything but a few colonies. We've seen them defending a couple worlds other than Earth. It's possible that's all that's left of their former empire."

"A sound theory, but… something just doesn't sound right about it," Caprica said with a shake of her head. "They don't fight like an interplanetary superpower with colonies to defend. They fight like an emerging global power defending allies that have what they need to build up, which is what you'd expect of the Colonials if they reached out past the Cyrannus Sector before the Fall of the Colonies. Their behavior is more in line with an emerging power, so **how** are they more advanced than everyone else?"

"The aliens," D'Anna replied simply. "What if their technology base was given to them by aliens? What they're doing exactly what we're doing? Stealing from the Jaffa and improving what they capture. It would explain their behavior, would it not?"

"It would, but it doesn't explain the presence of so many different super-powerful alien warships in orbit of their homeworld," Cavil replied irately. For once, it was clear that he was, at least, not angry at them.

"They're building them, remember?" Simon prompted. "It's possible they traded the ship designs for Earth's industrial capacity being thrown behind the aliens that are equipping them. It would explain why their ships are so different, why they're building alien war ships on their planet, and how they've come so far so fast. The improvements to the _Odyssey_ began before a larger ship was given its name. When we first encountered the _Odyssey_, the ship relied on fighters, missiles, and railguns to hold off our advances. When next we met, seven Baseships were destroyed by the very beam weapons you encountered over Earth. The time gap between the meeting at the Tylium Mine and the meeting of Seven Versus One less than a Caprican lunar cycle. Either the system was damaged during their earlier engagements, or the ship was upgraded between those two meetings."

"This just comes to show how little we know about our enemy," Caprica said with a groan of annoyance before she finally stopped pacing long enough to sit down in huff. "We made a mistake attacking Earth when we did."

"We didn't have much of a choice," Boomer reminded them. "We either helped willing and committed the ships that were scheduled to be mothballed or broken down for scrap, or we risked being hacked by a superior AI mind and having everything we had committed to a fight we still would've lost. Considering how things ended, I stand by our decision to commit the Lesser Fleet."

"The fact that even the Lesser Fleet only managed to destroy one of their ships, and that through an act of suicide on their part in a valiant effort to save their homeworld, is very unnerving," Caprica said in an agreeing tone.

"You say that like you admire them," Cavil sneered.

"From a military standpoint, I do. They held their planet against a joint assault from two hostile powers and even managed to destroy the _Colony_ we had sent to conduct field repairs. They have… earned my respect. Nothing else."

"You respect them now!" Cavil accused angrily.

"As you don't?" D'Anna shot back.

"They destroyed the _Colony_," Simon pointed out.

"The shields on that station would've survived a direct assault from every Ha'tak in this galaxy, and its weapons would've reduced that force to debris in a matter of hours. Now it's gone. Vapor in the solar winds," Leoben pressed.

"At the very least, we've bought ourselves time. It will take them some years to repair what we destroyed on the ground, and, until that's done, their fleets are unable to be rebuilt. For now, we have time. Let us use it wisely. We need to focus everything we can into upgrading the Baseships. At this point, better power generation methods are needed before we can do anything else. To do that, we need to be able to refine naquadah to a greater level of purity. To do that, we'll need to capture one of Ba'al's refinement plants and study it," Caprica continued.

"Have we not already done this?" Simon asked.

"When we first captured one of Ba'al's naquadah mines, we captured just that; the mine. The refinement process for naquadah takes place in stages. On the minor mining worlds we've taken so far, that means the initial process takes place locally. In essence, all they do is separate the naquadah from the lesser minerals in the stone. After that, the next step is melting it down and starting the process of scrubbing out everything that's not naquadah. We've captured one world thus far that this process takes place on, and it's given us the ability to produce fifty-percent pure naquadah. There is, however, another step. At fifty percent, the naquadah is used in their personal weapons. Not until it reaches something closer to seventy-percent is it used in ships. We haven't targeted any of Ba'al's ship building worlds yet because we didn't have the forces to take and hold such a vital world. With the Greater Fleet, we now have the power," D'Anna explained.

"We do not, however, have the numbers to act rashly," Caprica countered. "Before, the Lesser Fleet could be used as a force multiplier, a reserve force, and the guardians/escorts for the _Colonies_. Now we only have the **one** fleet. We'll need to grow more, and we'll need to do it soon. Let us take a short break from the offensive, let the Humans think we truly are beat, then we will strike with the full might of the Greater Fleet and the Humans of the Thirteenth Tribe will know their end is near!"

"Fine," Cavil groaned. "But only a short break."

***Milky Way Galaxy (Orion Arm)***

**Dead Space (Cylon Fleet)**

*Cylon Resurrection Hub (Research Labs)*

"There you are!" another Six said as Caprica walked into the labs built into the enlarged Resurrection Hub.

"What's wrong?" Caprica asked.

"We've been getting strange readings from the pro…" the other Six began before the station shook under their feet.

A second later, a voice entered their 'telepathic' link. _'Disembarkation complete. Tethers are snapped. You're clear to jump.'_ Another, smaller vibration ran through the station as something very large entered FTL not far from the station's exterior. The advent of shields allowed them to maneuver around one another more closely without risking destruction. It didn't completely stop the shaking though.

"The probes we left to monitor the Thirteenth Tribe?" Caprica asked.

"The readings are all distorted," the other Six replied. "We can't get any accurate data. It's like… I don't know, it's like they're overloaded or something."

"A jamming field?" Caprica asked.

"It's not any type of interference I've seen before. Jamming fields create static, but this… I don't know what this is," the other Six said with a shake of her head.

Caprica looked over the data from the probe they had lost contact with for a while before the signal finally reestablished itself. Now… "This is all garbage!" Caprica griped. "It's like watching a movie at super speed…"

"You don't think…" Six asked when Caprica trailed off.

Caprica's answer to that question was the recorded information coming over the line in a comprehensible stream of data as opposed to a blur of nothing discernable. "Then can manipulate the flow of time," Caprica said in an awed tone as they watched, at a more proper speed, as the entire system the Thirteenth Tribe called home was wrapped in a bubble of energy. "The Thirteenth Tribe can manipulate the flow of time. They can…" Caprica began as the footage showed a time-lapse-like recalling of events. Caprica and the other Six simply started on in abstract horror as an asteroid was towed into orbit of Earth before structures started appearing on it. "They've had years…" Caprica breathed as realization dawned on her. "They've had years to rebuild!"

"We need to warn the others!" the Six said as she turned to run.

She took two steps before the whole station shook under their feet.

*Cylon Resurrection Hub (Consensus Room)*

It began as it always did. A large force of smaller ships exited hyperspace and started laying into the Cylon Fleet defending the Hub. The problem Cavil had with this was that the force of support ships alone outnumbered the ships present to stand in the defense of Earth during the Cylon attack on the Thirteenth Tribe. Then their larger ships started exiting hyperspace on the wrong side of the Cylon lines. Once again, the numbers present now were far greater than the numbers present to defend their world only a few weeks ago.

"When did they amass such a large force?" Simon asked in a concerned tone.

"And when did they find the time to build those things!?" D'Anna nearly shouted as the largest ship present during the attack on the Thirteenth Tribe appeared before them flanked on either side by two ships of equal size, though clearly not of the same design. In fact, every ship present aside from that one was distinctly within the architectural styles Caprica had expected the Thirteenth Tribe to use.

"They had all these ships available to them and yet they let their world be so badly damaged?" Leoben asked.

"Who cares? Just order them destroyed and get us out of here!" Cavil ordered.

"They didn't have these during our assault on Earth!" Caprica said breathlessly as she slid into the room at a dead sprint, breathing heavily. "The Thirteenth Tribe can alter the flow of time! They have lived years while we have lived only weeks!"

"THEY CAN WHAT!?" Cavil shouted.

"There isn't any time to explain while the Resurrection Hub is in danger. We need to move out of range of their guns!" Boomer stressed as the station shook around them.

"It's too late," Simon said calmly. "They've disabled our FTL core. The Hub is as good as lost. If we stay to defend it, we will lose this portion of the Greater Fleet. I believe that I do not need to tell you how bad that would be for us in our current situation. The assault on Ba'al's world as begun. These ships are all the reinforcement that the rest of the fleet has. We must withdraw."

"So be it," Cavil sneered before rolling his eyes into the back of his head. A second later, his body dropped to the ground now absent a mind to control it. The others followed after shortly.

***Cyrannus Sector (Cylon Territory)***

**Dead Space (Cylon Fall Back Point)**

*Cylon Resurrection Hub Mark II (Resurrection Chamber)*

When Cavil regained consciousness, a process that only took a few minutes at the most instead of several hours if the 'line was busy,' his new body stepped out of the dry tank, another change they made when building the New Hub was to get rid of the insufferable goo they always woke up in, and Cavil forewent clothes. Instead, he walked into the large, circular room with seven doors leading to other chambers like the one he was just in. The others from the Council exited their own rooms, all of them also naked, and the floor opened to allow the rings to whisk them away. They reached the War Room aboard the New Hub in a matter of seconds after 'dying' aboard the Old Hub and Cavil smiled in the privacy of his mind. The New Hub was quite the upgrade from the old machine that they only knew how to rebuild because they had found alien technology to scan past the Old Hub's impressive jammers. Jammers that, much to Cavil's displeasure, they still couldn't shut off. Oh well, they wouldn't need to now.

Placing his hand onto the simple interface surface, gone were the days of liquid coupling them to their computers, Cavil took in the information and frowned. "Their forces are larger than we thought."

"A simultaneous assault on three locations?" D'Anna asked in a shocked tone as she also tapped into the data flow, the others joining them.

"Three heavily fortified locations at that," Leoben grunted.

"You have to give Humans credit. They do know how to bring the fire," Boomer mused.

Through her connection to the network of Resurrection Ships, subspace comms and sensors grids, and the raw processing power of the New Hub, Boomer could simply tap into the data flow and see the galaxy through the sensors aboard any of their ships. They could even remote pilot Raiders or Centurions, but, for now, Boomer was simply observing.

Through the eyes of a Raider, she watched as a beam of energy blacker than the void of space stabbed deep into the Old Hub's core and overloaded its reactor even before taking down its shields. Her perceptive then switched as that Raider was destroyed by the sweeping white lights the Thirteeners used as an anti-fighter screen. Now from the point-of-view of a Baseship's hybrid, she watched as a small part of the Greater Fleet stood in defiance of the renewed Thirteenth Fleet. Then the three massive vessels that were each large enough to build, house, and maintain a small fleet of Baseships joined the assault on the Baseships themselves. The sheer amount of weapons fire those three ships possessed would've given any _Colony_ a run for its money, much less one designed as a shipyard and not a mobile weapons platform.

As such, the Consensus gave the order and the Greater Fleet defending the remains of the Old Hub entered FTL to regroup at their current location. Boomer's perspective then shifted again as she looked through the eyes of a Centurion attacking Ba'al's world. She took control of its body from across the stars and lifted its head to the sky. Above them, two ships were descending into the atmosphere as debris from Baseships rained down around the approaching forms. Above the duo of dark silhouettes, another portion of the Thirteenth Tribe's Fleet tore into the Baseships in orbit of a world they had just taken from Ba'al earlier that morning.

As a chunk of a Baseship's arm landed atop the Centurion she was using to see, Boomer's perspective shifted again. This time she saw through only the sensors grid aboard a Resurrection Ship working to fill a gap in the Resurrection Network. With such a minor job, the ship had no escorts. Only its cloak kept it safe. It was hidden near a black hole, and, from its position, it could see yet another surge of Thirteener ships attacking one of their scouting parties looking for a new naquadah mine.

That's when she saw it.

The _Battlestar Galactica_ was accompanying this particular raid against their forces, and, present on its hull was a radiation signature. "I know that from somewhere," Boomer mused as she searched her memories and their databanks looking for where she'd seen that signature before.

"There!" D'Anna said as she projected a mental image to them. It was a nebula not far from the Cyrannus Sector. Well, 'not far' in galactic terms at any rate.

"The signature on their hull is too strong to have been from a passing journey through the nebula," Caprica mused.

It started as a low chuckled then turned into an outright rictus of evil cackling. Cavil had found a new target for their reserve forces.

And the Consensus had no arguments.

* * *

I've gotten quite a few requests over the past few weeks with people asking me, "When are you going to continue the story?", "When's the next book coming out?", "You're not leaving it here are you?" and so on. First off, I'd like to thank you all for that. I know your mom and dad are always like, "You shouldn't care what people think of you!" but forget them! It's really nice to know that people actually care enough about what you do to actually seek the sequel to a fan-written story. Now, on that note, here's the deal…

On January sixth, twenty-fifteen I'm leaving for Basic Military Training (go Air Force!). Now, what that means is that is that, for nine weeks, I won't have a computer. At all. Which is going to be torture because I'm going to go through withdraw without a computer to type on 0_o Not looking forward to that in the slightest, but I **am** looking forward to what comes AFTER that. So there's that. Nine weeks without a computer. That means that I'll be nine weeks without looking at this story.

I've gotten questions about why nothing's been posted yet. That's because, like with before, I'm going to write the book in its entirety, all the way from the Prelude to the Epilogue, look over it, edit it, send it to a beta, THEN post it one chapter per day (because I know how much you all LOVED it when I did that *evil laugh*). After nine weeks of not looking at this story (which, in and of itself, is only on chapter three right now [I've been busy with the holidays and I've had writer's block for a while as well]) picking it up and taking off with it probably won't be easy after such a long break. That having been said, it'll probably be early April before I start making meaningful progress on the series again. That's just how long it'll take to **make progress**! So it'll probably be around late June before I start posting anything else after this…

Sorry about that, but life, and duty, calls! Now, I wanted to get this posted before I left for two main reasons, and several sub-reasons. First thing I wanted to do was let everyone know that I, Scourge 75, am, under no conditions, abandoning this story! The second point I wanted to make with this was the changes.

Do y'all remember Colonials on the Run in its "original" state? Disjointed, no flow, "temporal continuity issues" (yes, someone actually said it in those words and I laughed my ass off when I realized they were right), too many OCs, OCs getting to much "screen time," and the idea behind the whole thing, while solid, was poorly executed. In the Redux I tried really hard to fix that. I cut back on the "importance" of the OCs. In the first half of the book, they were the main element tying in the crossover, sure, but, after they made it back to Earth, you hardly ever heard from them. That'll continue for the foreseeable future.

The original attempt at this story was confusing (even to me) and very disorganized because I was in high school screwing around in my free time. Now I'm done with college and I know the English language well enough to get this shit right… for the most part. I've also ironed out my plot and written myself a timeline of events and how they need to play out. Now, on that note, the original story went from Colonials on the Run to Reasons We Fear the Dark then I went backwards and made "Book 2" Phoenix Effect which was, in and of itself, heavily flawed. This time, I'm not messing with the "Mass Effect" timeline until "Mass Effect 2." As such, the story's drastically different. There is no post-apocalyptic Earth, no Tau'ri-Earth jumping realities, and no Sieon around to suggest that these things be done. There is, however, a pissed off Furling running around his home universe looking for his wife and a certain Human SPECTRE destined to cross his path.

At the beginning of "Mass Effect 2," Shepard is blown into space and dies in such a way that his blood would've boiled and melted his brain. Nothing would be in his skull but a liquid-ish goo sloshing around. So how did Cerberus bring him back "as the man/woman he/she was before"? My answer is that they didn't. In Fall of the Gods Book 2: Forward Unto Dawn (yes that's the official title of the second book now, so look for it around June of twenty-fifteen) instead of being dead for two years, Shepard gets… unwillingly conscripted to Sieon's hunt for Rana. It takes two years. During that time *omitted on the grounds of being a spoiler*. In the end, Shepard goes back to the Alliance and "Mass Effect 3" will play out from there, but that's another book and another matter. First, we have **this** book.

What you'll have to look forward to when Forward Unto Dawn goes up is the Cylons being galactic enemy number one, Earth's efforts to recover from the Three Day Siege, Sieon's hunt for Rana, and how the newly minted UNSC forms its first network of galactic spies. In other words, the formation of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Also, I know a lot of you are asking why I'm doing Forward Unto Dawn when I "hinted" at The Edge of Tomorrow being the next book. Long story short, The Edge of Tomorrow refused to flow properly which is why I started working on Forward Unto Dawn. Now, you could argue that, had I stayed with The Edge of Tomorrow, I'd have something to give you other than this teaser, but I just couldn't get the story to flow properly.

That combined with the fact that The Edge of Tomorrow is my take on Stargate: Continuum means that it would've been a "movie" not a "book." I tried for a movie format with that part of the "series" and it just didn't work so I abandoned it for the time being to work on Forward Unto Dawn. Now I'm going to Basic and I have nothing to give you but this apology/teaser/announcement. Sorry about that… again.

So, long story summed up, I'm going to BMT, I HAVE **NOT** GIVEN UP ON THIS STORY, and I'll "see you all" sometime in June when either Forward Unto Dawn or The Edge of Tomorrow hits the web, and, until then, I wish you all a good life!

Sincerely,

Scourge 75

P.S.

No, I did not, in any way, proof this "chapter" before posting it. I didn't really see the point... So... yeah... Sorry about that too.


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